The Taiwanese American Student Coalition (TASC) hosted their Spider-Man themed banquet this past Sunday, bringing together Binghamton University students for a night of games, performances and a celebration of the Asian community at BU. Sponsored by the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) and Student Association (SA), the event exemplified the collaboration and hard work of TASC’s E-Board and all students involved.

Mel Zhang, co-event coordinator for TASC and a junior majoring in English, explained the process of planning the banquet with Angela Li, co-event coordinator for TASC and a junior majoring in integrative neuroscience.

“My co-chair, [Li], and I spent countless hours drafting several ideas on what we wanted the banquet to look like,” Zhang wrote. “As a Taiwanese organization, our past themes revolve around ideas culturally significant in Taiwan. In recent years, we had Houtong Cat Village and a 7/11 convenience store. To provide a fresh perspective on TASC Banquet, we decided to take a beloved concept familiar to our general body members and put our unique take on it.”

TASC adorned the Mandela Room with Spider-Man themed decorations, including blue tablecloths, mason jars with string lights and a 8 x 10 foot Spider-Man backdrop designed by TASC’s publicity chairs. Upon entering, attendees were welcome to enjoy fried rice and noodle dishes.

Li elaborated upon the collaborative experience of organizing the banquet.

“When it comes to planning any big event catered to 200-plus people, there are going to be lots of ups and downs,” Li wrote in an email. “There were a lot of unexpected challenges that [Zhang], and I faced but we were able to overcome them with the help of our upper board and everyone on E-Board. Having a truly supportive co-chair like [Zhang] has really helped make the process of planning the banquet as smooth as possible.”

This year’s banquet began with a video skit featuring Stanley Sun, cultural chair of TASC and a sophomore majoring in biology, training to become Spider-Man alongside Isaac Ahn, publicity chair of TASC and an undeclared freshman. The skit was delivered in sections throughout the event, with games and performances in between. The event was moderated by emcees Jessica Eng, webmaster for TASC and a sophomore majoring in business administration, and Andy Li, fundraising chair for TASC and a junior double-majoring in accounting and business administration.

Sun conveyed the experience of filming the skit, in which he becomes “Spider-Stan.”

“Behind the scenes, the process of filming the actual skit was fun to create,” Sun wrote in an email. “Despite me and my co-star [Ahn] being embarrassed about filming the skit, trying our best to be somewhat good actors and the numerous times that we would crack jokes in between recording each scene and being idiots, I felt like we had a lot of fun making it with the rest of the film crew. In retrospect, I believe the skit ended up being funny and entertaining for everyone at the banquet.”

Performances included the women in TASC dance, men of TASC dance, E-Board dance and a cultural dance to the music of ASi & Yoga Lin, featuring rotating outfits. Paradox, BU’s K-pop dance unit, took the stage with electrifying performances in the first half of the night. Student band YBK graced the stage after intermission, delivering a full-band sound vocals, violin, piano, electric guitar and bass guitar. These live performances were also preceded and followed by music videos created by the E-Board, such as “Beauty and the Beat” by Justin Bieber feat. Nicki Minaj.

Claire Pan, lead director of Paradox and a senior majoring in computer science, conveyed the importance of performing at TASC banquet for Paradox.

“I think performing at banquets like this is really important for us because it’s our main way of outreach and for other people who you know might not have initially heard of us,” Pan said. “They get to see us on stage and they might ask around — ‘Oh, who’s Paradox?’”

Stephanie Chen, president of TASC and a senior majoring in business administration, concluded the event by inviting the entire E-Board to the stage and giving thanks to the organizations in attendance. Organizations in attendance included the Asian Student Union (ASU), Chinese American Student Union (CASU), Asian Outlook (AO), BU Japanese Association (BUJA), Korean American Student Association (KASA), Chinascope, Philippine-American League (PAL), Hong Kong Exchange Square (HKES), Society of Asian Scientist & Engineers (SASE), Vietnamese Student Association (VSA), Thai Student Association (TSO), Delta Sigma Pi and the Stony Brook University Taiwanese Student Association (TSA).

In her closing remarks, Chen addressed the E-Board and thanked them for their tireless effort throughout the semester and commitment to TASC. Chen remarked on her hopes for the attendees of the event in an interview.

“I hope they just see how fun our E-Board is, [and] how hard we work,” Chen said. “Then hopefully this gauges interest for them to join our E-Board as well to continue our legacy within [the University].”

On the topic of TASC Banquet’s significance to both the TASC general body and the BU community, Li emphasized the importance of cultural diversity and community.

“[The banquet] provides a platform for us as an organization to showcase Taiwanese culture, in hopes of fostering a sense of pride and belonging among [the general body],” Li wrote. “For the Greater Binghamton community, the TASC Banquet creates a platform for us to showcase the vibrant and beauty of Taiwanese culture to help promote diversity and inclusion at our University. We hope that many Taiwanese students are able to feel a sense of pride and [belonging] to other students to learn more about the culture and heritage through the performances and vibe.”